Wix vs Shopify – Which Website Builder Is Best for Ecommerce?

When it comes to Wix vs Shopify, we found that Wix is a better e-commerce website builder for small businesses than Shopify, because it offers more advanced web design tools and ecommerce functionality. Plus, it offers more flexible pricing at a better value with a free forever plan that can get you started for cheap.

Shopify is no slouch, though. It offers better sales-focused features than Wix and is easier to use, making it a better choice for larger ecommerce businesses with large or complex inventories, or new users looking for an ultra-low learning curve. 

We’ll admit choosing between the two is a tough call though, as each website builder has unique strengths that lend themselves better to different types of businesses. In this guide, you’ll learn which website builder is a good fit for your business, based on in-depth research and hands-on 

In this guide:

• Wix vs Shopify Comparison Overview
• Wix Pricing vs Shopify Pricing
• Wix vs Shopify: Head to Head
• Other Ecommerce Alternatives
• Methodology: Testing Wix and Shopify
• Verdict: Which Website Builder Is Better?
• Wix vs Shopify FAQs 

Wix vs Shopify Comparison Overview

Unlike Shopify, which is an ecommerce website builder first, Wix is a general-purpose website builder ideal for building portfolios or business websites, that also helps businesses sell online.

Despite this, our research found Wix will still be the better choice for small businesses selling online, as the platform lets you choose between 800+ free templates – compared to Shopify’s 12 – gives you more agency over the look of your site, and offers more than enough sales features to meet the needs of smaller stores. The average price of Wix’s plans is much lower than Shopify’s as well, making it a tempting option for businesses without massive budgets. 

Shopify will be a better fit for large and growing stores though, with more advanced sales features than Wix, like augmented reality integrations, and international commerce. Shopify will also be the superior choice for online businesses that also sell in-person, as the website builders’s seamless integration with Shopify POS makes omnichannel selling a breeze. 

In the Shopify POS, users can add customer profiles for better tracking and engagement. Source: Tech.co testing

If you’re a beginner to website building, Shopify offers a cleaner interface than Wix and is less prone to errors, which is why its user experience score has improved so much since our last round of testing. However, with the best help and support center out of any website builder we researched, Wix is still a solid option for newbies.

Who should use Wix?

• Small businesses that want to expand their online presence without breaking their budget
• Creative ecommerce businesses that want a unique, well-designed site
• Growing businesses that would benefit from tools like email marketing

Who should use Shopify?

• Larger ecommerce stores that would benefit from advanced features like bulk imports and invoice generators
• Businesses shipping to different regions, as Shopify offers superior shipping features
• Beginners to website building that might be overwhelmed by Wix’s feature-rich software

Wix Overview

Wix sits at the top of our recommended ecommerce solutions, thanks to robust features, great help and support, admirable ease of use, and great prices that start at $17 per month.

Even Wix’s relatively lesser showings when it comes to server response time, limited SEO guidance, and the complexity of its website editor aren’t large drawbacks. Wix does what you need, it’s easy, and it’s inexpensive – the holy trifecta for an ecommerce website builder.

We’ve rated Wix as our top recommended service overall, and it’s a particularly good choice for those creating a smaller store. Thanks to its amazing templates and intuitive system, even a non-expert can create a professional-looking site with ease using Wix. The Wix platform gives you a helping hand right from the word go, drafting up a dummy online store that will look good enough to publish, even before you adjust it with your own imagery, text, and product database – all of which can be done with ease via Wix.

Check out our in-depth Wix review for more information

Wix provided us with lots of options when it came to displaying products on our site. Source: Tech.co testing

Shopify Overview

What makes Shopify best for larger companies? Shopify has more in-depth sales features than Wix, especially when it comes to accounting and shipping. The service’s inventory tools are complex, which will be a boon for any ecommerce operation with a lot of quantities, suppliers, and locations to track and manage.

Shopify also allows you to sell across more sales channels and has a level of depth as an ecommerce platform that Wix can’t quite match, like a slightly greater array of payment options — Shopify supports PayPal, Stripe, Square, Apple Pay, and Amazon, while Wix supports just the first four. Shopify also has more diverse multi-channel integration options than Wix.

Plus, some of Shopify’s downsides are less of an issue for a larger company that can afford a longer learning curve. Shopify has a more restrictive and less intuitive design than Wix, but in time, workers will be able to figure out how to navigate it just fine.

In the end, however, the two services are so close in quality that your business will likely be happy with either one.

Check out our in-depth Shopify review for more information

Wix Pricing vs Shopify Pricing

When it comes to value, the amount of features you get for your monthly fee is just as important as the literal dollar amount, you’re paying for them. In this comparison, Wix has both lower prices and a better value for what you get.

Wix’s plans start at a lower price point than Shopify’s plans, with simple website plans starting at $17 per month and ecommerce-equipped websites starting at $29 per month. In contrast, Shopify’s comparable ecommerce plans start at $29 per month with Basic Shopify, while the Advanced Shopify plan costs $299 per month.

That said, we did find Shopify to surpass Wix when it comes to the quality of its ecommerce features in particular, such as the Shopify POS, which supports real-world selling, a range of customizable shipping rates, and granular reporting tools.

Shopify Payments massively improves the value of Shopify’s web builder as well. You aren’t charged third-party transaction fees for orders that are processed through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments, and PayPal Express, and you aren’t charged transaction fees on manual payment methods such as cash, cash on delivery (COD), and bank transfers.

Shopify Plus merchants who use Shopify Payments as their primary gateway will also have their transaction fees waived for all other payment methods used, making the builder a better deal for larger businesses with higher turnovers.

Here’s what to know about each service’s price plans.

Wix Pricing

Wix has four pricing plans — Light, Core, Business, and Business Elite. Check out the pricing table below to see how they match up against each other on everything from price and support to reporting and ecommerce functionality.

Light plan

Light costs $17 per month and allows for two staff accounts. It comes with all of Wix’s website building tools including the editor, templates, and third-party integrations. You’ll get 2GB storage, a (low) 2GB bandwidth, and a free domain voucher with an annual subscription.

Core plan

Wix’s first pricing plan with ecommerce functionality is Core, available for $29 per month and comes with five staff accounts. You’ll get unlimited bandwidth and 50GB of storage, plus the Site Booster and Form Builder apps. Ecommerce tools include inventory, sales, social channels, and abandoned cart recovery. Like all the other Wix Business plans, Basic won’t take any commissions from your sales.

Business plan

Next up is the Wix Business plan, for $36 per month, which allows for 10 staff accounts. New features include the Wix logo builder, a 100GB storage cap, and the ability to upload up to 10 hours of video. The big jump in functionality comes with the new ecommerce features: You’ll get support for multiple currencies and subscriptions, Automated sales tax (for 100 transactions per month), and access to selling on other online marketplaces.

Business Elite plan

Finally, the Business Elite plan is available for $159 per month, allowing for 15 staff accounts. New features include unlimited video uploads, 100 GB of storage, custom reports, and priority customer support.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify’s three ecommerce plans are a break after dealing with all seven of Wix’s plans. Here, you’ll just have to worry about Basic, Shopify, and Advanced.

Basic

The cheapest ecommerce plan is Basic, at $29 per month billed annually. For monthly billing, you’ll have to pay $39 per month. You’ll get unlimited products, two staff accounts, sales channels for both online marketplaces and social platforms, up to four inventory locations, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, and gift cards.

Transaction fees will be 2.9% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.7% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 2% if not using Shopify payments.

Shopify

Next up is the curtly named “Shopify” plan, which costs $79 per month billed annually. For monthly billing, you’ll have to pay $105 per month. It comes with all the perks Basic has to offer, plus more: Five staff accounts, up to five inventory locations, standard reporting, and the ability to use custom international pricing and domains.

Transaction fees will be 2.6% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.5% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 1% if not using Shopify payments.

Advanced

Finally, there’s the Advanced ecommerce plan, for a hefty $299 per month billed annually. For monthly billing, you’ll have to pay $399 per month. Feature limitations are expanded again, to fifteen staff accounts, up to eight inventory locations, and advanced reporting. Other perks include calculated shipping rates, USPS priority mail pricing, and more complex international pricing.

Transaction fees will be 2.4% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.4% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 0.5% if not using Shopify payments.

Find out how much Shopify could cost you in our Shopify pricing guide.

Wix vs Shopify: Which has the best free plan?

Neither Wix nor Shopify offers an ongoing ecommerce plan for free.

Shopify does have a 3-day free trial, as well as a Starter plan that only costs $1 for the first month, which is a useful way for interested parties to try out the service and all the features it has to offer. We’d recommend starting with the free trial first, though you may want to write a list of all the features to test-run beforehand, in order to get the most out of your trial period before you’re forced to make a decision as to which plan you might actually pay for.

Wix offers a 14-day free trial that lets new users try out what the service has to offer. It’s not long, but you’ll be able to see whether or not Wix is right for you.

Wix vs Shopify: Head-to-Head

Now that we know all the basics about Shopify vs Wix, as well as how much each website builder costs, it’s time to dig a little deeper. Below, we’ve compared Wix and Shopify on everything from ecommerce features and website design to ease of use and customer support.

• Ecommerce Features
• Website Features
• Ease of Use
• Help & Support

Wix vs Shopify for Ecommerce: Shopify

Wix does offer some solid sales features, most notably the ability to sell unlimited products and advanced CRM functionality. However, Shopify’s ecommerce toolkit is more competitive than Wix’s, with the provider offering every sales feature necessary to grow your business, including industry-leading capabilities like AR and VR integrations, and in-house accounting tools.

Read on to see how Wix and Shopify compare when it comes to specific ecommerce features.

Payment options

Shopify has a broader range of payment options: It supports over 100 payment methods including PayPal, Stripe, Square, Amazon, and Apple Pay. In contrast, Wix supports 70 providers, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square, but not Amazon or Apple Pay.

Wix did, however, add the ability to accept contactless payments on an iPhone in March 2023, with a new Tap to Pay feature that requires no additional hardware. Both providers offer native payment support as well, through Shopify Payments and Wix Payments.

Checkout

Both Shopify and Wix offer an assortment of useful checkout features, including native payment support, secure payment options, abandoned card recovery, and customization options. For example, Wix lets businesses add a number of fields to their checkout page, like subscription opt-in boxes and site policies.

 However, Shopify’s checkout features are more comprehensive and flexible that Wix’s, and are expanding every year. Aside from standard checkout options, Shopify recently launched over 90 apps and 14 new APIs and updates for checkout customization, giving users the option to seamlessly add loyalty programs, post-purchase survey and more. 

For example, Shopify’s online checkout service, Shop Pay gives users full control of their checkout page, allowing them to add custom fields like ‘You Might Also Like’ recommendations, and use its Checkout Branding API to make advanced visual customizations in line with their branding. 

We found it easy to add products in Shopify with basic categorization features. Source: Tech.co testing

Shopify’s ‘One-Click Checkout’ options, released in June 2023, make it easier than ever for customers to purchase from sites made with the provider too. The feature stores customer shipping and payment information within the payment processor only requiring them to enter the data once, and letting them purchase items with a single click as a result.

Ecommerce sales channels

Shopify lets you sell your products and services through loads of different sales channels. For example, you can sell through social media sites such as Instagram or Facebook, or global ecommerce sites such as eBay or Amazon.

All the sales information from the channels is managed by Shopify, meaning that you can keep track of stock levels, and analyze the sales performance on these different channels. Wix, on the other hand, only allows you to sell products through its online store templates.

Through its Shopify Payments system, you’re able to track everything from sales on Instagram to Google Shopping, as well as real-world point-of-sale transactions.

Product management

Shopify makes it super easy to add to and manage the products you sell. For a start, the provider’s bulk import feature lets you add new products in large groups, rather than one-by-one. This is helpful if you’ve got a new line of similar products, for example. Shopify also has excellent product management features that make it easy to track and amend stock levels, as well as analyze the way customers interact with your products when they come to purchase them.

Shopify’s bulk import feature let me upload products in groups, saving me lots of time. Source: Tech.co testing

What’s more, many of Shopify’s built-in inventory features are only available for Wix through third-party apps, which can vary in quality. Shopify also improved inventory tracking by adding two new states for products: On hand and Unavailable.

POS capabilities

Both Wix and Shopify have their own POS service which allows businesses to seamlessly combine online and in-person selling. Wix’s POS service lets businesses through its own payment processor, Wix Payments, or external payment providers like Square and SumUp, and offers a range of standard functions like analytics, stock management, and employee management.

Shopify’s POS features are slightly more impressive than Wix’s however The system offers more advanced inventory controls like low-stock alerts, as well as 24/7 support channels. It costs less to get started with Shopify’s POS too, with the provider’s chip-and-pin card reader costing $49, compared to Wix’s $59 reader.

Check out our Shopify POS review to learn more.

Shopify is compatible with its own POS systems, as well as other third-party integrations. Source: Shopify

Accounting

Another big ecommerce feature is accounting — tracking sales and logging data for tax season. Shopify nails this again: Its built-in invoice generator makes it super-easy to create invoices but allows you the option to change and customize them without restraint.

Similarly, Shopify will automatically calculate the tax rates on your products. However, these automatic tax rates can be changed and customized, so you can ensure any quirks – such as state tax exemptions in the US, or VAT-exempt items in Britain – don’t fall through the cracks. Any changes you make are applied to your online sales and any sales made with Shopify POS. If that’s not enough, Shopify also has a wide range of accounting apps available for installation.

Best for Website Features: Wix

Wix and Shopify both offer all the features you need to build a professional, profitable site. However, Wix offers a broader array of web building and optimization features than Shopify and pairs this with optimum site speeds, which is why it’s the best website builder we’ve reviewed.

Take a look at how the builders compare when it comes to SEO analytics and more.

Scheduling and booking

If you want to handle scheduling and booking inquiries with Shopify, you’ll have to use third-party apps like Easy Appointment Booking or Appointly. Lots of these integrations have been designed specifically for Shopify, and offer excellent functionality, but charge if you want to unlock advanced features like cancellations and booking limits.

In contrast, Wix offers scheduling software in-house, which lets businesses manage bookings, payments, employees, reminders, and more, without any additional costs. The software lets you display services clearly, collect client info with custom booking forms, and even send SMSs and email booking reminders, giving it a huge leg-up over Shopify in this field.

Wix Bookings lets your audience book for a service directly through your website. Source: Tech.co testing

Members area

Setting up a member’s area on your website is a tried-and-tested way to increase engagement and foster a loyal community around your brand. Both Shopify and Wix let you create member areas on your website, but Shopify users will have to do so through the provider’s Private Store app integration which costs $4.99 per month.

Wix offers this feature in-house and goes above and beyond by letting you fully customize the design, color, and layout of your Member Profile Cards. Wix also lets you create custom signup and login forms, add pages with exclusive member content, and add user permissions to other areas of your site, making it the optimal choice for businesses offer membership services.

Page security

Online security is more important than ever with the rise of threats like scammers and ransomware, and ecommerce operations in particular will need to keep their customers’ credit card details safe.

Wix and Shopify both support one of the biggest website builder security functions, password protection. This lets users set a sturdy password to ensure that only the right people can access their website’s backend through either Wix or Shopify.

Wix also includes a member’s area, while Shopify supports a customer login option.

SEO

Both Shopify and Wix offer a decent variety of search engine optimization tools including editable meta tags and auto-generated title and canonical tags, as well as many SEO add-ons. Wix goes one step further by giving users a personalized SEO checklist to work from, giving users real-time feedback on their site’s content.

Shopify is better than Wix for multilingual SEO, making it a better fit for international businesses. However, Wix’s partnership with Semrush, a global SEO database containing over 21 billion keywords, and its new SEO settings, which give users a granular level of control over the process, make the platform more capable than Shopify at improving search rankings.

Analytics

Users will get different reporting functions under different plans, but both Shopify and Wix offer tons of metrics to measure site performance, including revenue analysis, customer insights, and traffic tracking. For example, Wix’s analytics platform lets you see where your visitors come from, how they get on your site, and whether or not they return. It also displays which days or times of day your site gets the most traffic.

Shopify and Wix also both grant users access to Google Analytics, a website tracking tool that logs page views and highlights which products are the most popular. Shopify also includes conversion tracking metrics outside of Google’s analytics, something that Wix does not support.

Third-party integrations

Both services also offer extensive app stores, to allow users to fill in any gaps in their website’s features through a (usually paid) third-party service.

Wix’s store includes categories for Marketing, Sell Online, Services & Events, Media & Content, Design Elements, and Communication, while Shopify’s app store comes with a similar array of categories such as Sourcing and selling products, Marketing, and Store design.

The Wix App Market provided plenty of third-party integrations to help build out our site. Source: Tech.co testing

Best for Ease of Use: Shopify

Both builders offer straightforward drag-and-drop functionality that lets you build the website components you want without a lick of coding knowledge required.

However, since our last round of testing, Shopify’s ease of use has improved significantly since our last round of testing, largely due to its recent incorporation of AI-site building features like Shopify Magic which writes product descriptions for you in an instant, and its continued effort to make its software as intuitive as possible.

In our user testing, we were impressed with how much more user-friendly the platform was than alternatives like BigCommerce and IONOS, and how simple the builder made it to carry out basic processes. In contrast, Wix offers a useful tutorial to get you started, but its vast number of features clouded its overall user experience, and would likely be offputting to users building a site for the first time.

Shopify’s user experience isn’t perfect, though. When we tested Shopify ourselves, we thought the relationship between the front end and back end was slightly disjointed, which might also be slightly off-putting to those with zero site-building experience. If you’re looking for an ultra-low learning curve, our research suggests you should use Squarespace instead.

In the Shopify POS, users can add customer profiles for better tracking and engagement. Source: Tech.co testing

Best for Help & Support: Wix

Our research found Wix’s help and support center to be slightly more reliable than Shopify, but there isn’t much in it. Wix gives 24/7 support to all of the customers in its paid plans. Online support options include a detailed knowledge base that customers can consult for text and video walkthroughs to common concerns. Wix doesn’t reserve its best help options for its pricier tiers as well, so entry-level paying customers can receive reliable help without paying a fortune.

The Shopify online knowledge base isn’t bad, either — it’s right around the industry average, with all the typical questions answered in detail. In the end, both services will give all their paying customers 24/7 support by email and live chat, which should be more than enough for most situations. When we tested both of the live chats out, we found Shopify’s response times to be slightly faster, making it a good option for users who frequently need queries resolved quickly. So, while we give Wix the edge in this comparison, Shopify holds its own just fine.

Even better, in the modern era, website builders are utilizing generative AI technology to provide helpful chatbots that can help you create a site in minutes with simple handholding for step-by-step assistance.

The Wix AI site generator used simple chatbot functionality to ask questions about our site. Source: Tech.co testing

Other Ecommerce Alternatives

Wix and Shopify both came out on top in our research and user testing but they won’t be able to meet the needs of every business. If you’re building an online store for the first time, Squarespace offers the lowest leaving curve of any website builder we tested. The platform also offers beautifully designed templates and a great design toolkit, making it ideal for creative ecommerce businesses.

While Wix is our best-rated AI website builder, Hostinger is another platform that offers an impressive array of artificial intelligence-powered features, including an AI site builder, an AI logo maker, and an AI heatmap that lets users analyze site behaviors.

There’s no shortage of excellent ecommerce builders to choose from though, so check out our comparison table to see how the industry’s best platforms compare.

How We Tested Wix vs Shopify

We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we’re giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.

After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with hands-on testing to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we put 16 website builder products to the test across 398 areas of investigation.

Based on years of market and user needs research, we’ve established an ecommerce website builder testing methodology that scores each product in seven main categories of investigation and 33 subcategories; this covers everything from customer feedback to design, ease of use, and more.

Our main testing categories for ecommerce website builders are:

• Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by a website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.
• Sales Features: the sales-focused tools a builder offers, including payment features, POS integrations, AR & VR integrations, check-out options, and more.
• Design Functuality: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using a website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customizable themes.
• Customer Satisfaction: external customer opinion. This is the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular website builder – the market position and reputation a website builder holds.
• Ease of Use: how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.
• Value for Money: the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.
• Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.

When it comes to calculating a product’s final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are simply “nice to have.” For example, when assessing the best ecommerce builders, we weigh sales features more heavily than other categories.

After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs. We also have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run this testing process regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.

Learn more about our research.

Wix vs Shopify FAQs